


By Any Other Name

by karmadog



Series: Icarus [1]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Angst, Guilt, Hubris, Post-Curse, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-06 15:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11038758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmadog/pseuds/karmadog
Summary: The night of the curse and the following transition.





	1. Cursed

**Author's Note:**

> A number of assumptions are made in this fic. As for Adam's full name, I chose Paul-Pierre Adam-Francois de Beaumont because French courtly names were often very long and had a mix of various saints thrown in there. Francois (Saint Francis) is the patron saint of both animals and literature (I think, I'm a Protestant, I'm just looking this stuff up). Both Paul and Peter (Pierre) went through some form of redemption, important to the Beasts' story. Contrary to popular belief, Adam is a French name (it is Biblical, after all), just not as commonly used and pronounced differently. The pronunciation is closer to "a-DAWn", which is how I've been reading it in my mind...Anyways, I also went off of the assumption that the prince was something of a womanizer before his transformation. It was tough to write the fairy tale prologue in a third-person past active setting, so please tell me what you think of the storytelling! Also be warned that I am in love with commas as a storytelling device and so use them very liberally to create stream-of-consciousness thinking. Thanks for reading! Please give feedback, I take it seriously!

           The baroness was speaking.  About what, Prince Paul-Pierre Adam-François de Beaumont was wholly unaware.  He smiled and nodded periodically throughout the dance, his mind leagues away.  Well, not really leagues away—the baroness’s younger sister was standing on the edge of the ballroom, eying her elder sister wearily with a carefully stifled look of jealousy.  Yes, she would do nicely.  The prince had already decided that she would be the one to return to his chambers tonight rather than the baroness—though rather air-headed, she at least wouldn’t talk her way through a night during which conversation was the very last activity in which he planned to employ his mouth.  Before the dance had even finished, the prince had begun drifting in the young woman’s direction, ignoring the flustered confusion of the slighted baroness behind him.

            He smirked at the way the young girl’s eyes lighted at his approach, at the way her face flushed with anticipation.  He would never grow tired of observing the effect he had on the fairer sex—it was no fault of theirs that they lacked the willpower to resist the triple threat of wealth, power, and dashing features he teasingly offered.

            It was as he was tenderly taking the young maiden’s hand in his that the knock resonated throughout the ballroom.  The music halted along with the dancers and the prince suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.  He looked sidelong at the maître d’, Lumiére, and grabbed the candelabra out of the surprised man’s hand when it seemed he wasn’t going to do anything.  With a huff he made his way towards the grand double doors.

            A beggar woman stumbled her way into the room.  The prince stepped back on instinct.  She was filthy, and old.  She reeked the way that all poor do, and the prince wrinkled his nose at the wholly foreign scent.  He could, of course, just have her thrown out, but he was intrigued.  What kind of creature would have the nerve to walk up to a castle, to nobility, to beg?  Perhaps the guests could at least derive some entertainment out the embarrassing scene this peasant was creating.  The prince cocked a brow and asked mockingly, “And how, pray tell, may I be of service to you, my lady?”

            “Please, sir,” the beggar woman asked in an accent completely untouched by any semblance of education, “It’s frightfully cold outside.  I fear I won’t make it through the night if I have to spend it out there.  Could you find it in your heart to spare me lodgings for just one night?”  She turned her eyes, milky with age, to his face.

            Whatever the prince had expected, it had certainly not been this.  He did not even have one of his famous retorts to respond with, so caught off his guard was he.  Stay the night?  Was she mad?  He rarely ventured far enough into the populated areas of the peasantry to know what a beggar looked like, much less entertain the idea of giving lodgings to one.

            In answer to his silence, the woman brought a withered hand out from beneath her rags, drawing a single rose into view.  “Please, sir, take this as a token of my gratitude,” she mumbled.

            Still mute, the prince gently plucked the rose from her hand, careful not to touch her withered flesh.  Studying the flower, he finally came to his senses and gave a mocking laugh.  The debutantes, who had remained silent up until this point, took his cue and joined his laughter with their own, some with abandon, some uncomfortably.  Sneering, he dropped the rose at the woman’s feet, taking satisfaction from the pained look that crossed her face.

            The prince turned to his maître d’, who had skillfully kept his face expressionless throughout the entire exchange.  He was about to gesture for Lumiére to toss the woman out when the flame atop the candelabra was snuffed out.  The prince turned to the candelabra in confusion; he had not felt any breeze.  Then an eerie golden light began to grope into his vision, a light that would haunt his dreams for years to come.

            His mind could hardly process what was happening before his eyes.  The beggar woman had lifted, not just off of her ancient knees, but into midair—and she wasn’t a beggar woman, not anymore.  She was beautiful, terrifyingly so.  Her wrinkled features had smoothed under the golden light into a stern and regal visage with a piercing gaze that was trained on him.  For the first time during the whole affair, the prince felt the first stirrings of real fear.

            He dropped to his knees, bowing to her as he had only ever bowed to the King, for how could he not in the face of such power?

            A voice reverberated through the hall, though the being’s mouth did not move.  “Woe unto you, ye of such little compassion…”  Her voice was raspy and musical simultaneously, soft and powerful.

            The prince genuflected before her, suddenly aware of his peril.  The debutantes seemed to grasp it, too, as their shrieks filled the air and they tripped over each other on their way to the door.  The prince looked around him wildly; he was utterly alone, with the exception of the few servants that had been with him the longest.  He turned back to the mystical creature in sheer terror, babbling now with a lack of grasp on the French language that he had hitherto never exhibited.  “Please, I’m so sorry, please stay as long as you like, my home is yours, oh God, please have mercy…”

            But the being did not hear him, or, if she did, did not listen.  “Heed my words, princeling.  While you may appear beautiful to the outward eye, nothing can hide your true nature, you hideous beast.  Let the flesh reveal what lies beneath!”

            With that, the light brightened, and the prince felt an agony rip through his being the likes of which he had never felt before.

            There was nothing, no sensation outside of the pain that tore through his senses, senses that melded together in a fury of light and sound and smell as they desperately tried to comprehend what was happening.  The prince fell on all fours, grinding his teeth together, teeth that were pushing slowly out of his gums, arms that were stretching, bending, locking into place.  Everything was on fire, oh God, how could such pain exist…?  Dimly, he heard screaming, dimly he realized it was his own, a figure stood near him, he reached out a foreign hand in desperation, oh God, someone help, but the man darted away, a look of terror etched across his features.  He could feel something pushing through his scalp, past his wig, slowly, oh too slowly, why couldn’t it all be over?  There was a fiery pain at his lower back, and a tearing and ripping sound as the fine, expensive clothes that had adorned him slipped off his altering body, as the shoes broke beneath his growing feet, and there he lay, naked, moaning and gasping on the cold, unfeeling marble floor, his mind fading, unwilling to process what had just taken place.

            As if from far away, he heard the Enchantress’s voice, for that was what she must be.  “I will offer you this rose once more, and I daresay that this time you will not refuse.  For, you see, this rose will represent your one chance at salvation, my prince.  As long as you can learn to love another and to earn that person’s love in return before the last petal falls from this rose, you will be able to regain your humanity.  Be warned, beast, that this love must be genuine.  And that those who have given their love to you freely before this cannot break that curse with their continuing loyalty.  You must prove that you are capable of love now, in this form, lest you remain a rough beast for all time.”

            The prince looked blearily up at her, hardly taking in her words.  Vaguely he heard some protest, and, oh, there were Lumiére and Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts, pleading for her mercy on his behalf.

            “Mon dieu, is this really necessary?  All this for a rose?” came Lumiére’s voice, laced with shock.

            Mrs. Potts fell tearfully before the Enchantress, crying that she had known the boy all his life, protesting and babbling about the cruelty of his father, insisting that nobody had intervened and it wasn’t the prince’s fault, and, oh, even through the pain Adam-François felt a wave of affection rise up for his once-nursemaid as he lay there on the cold marble, his skin feeling strange and unfamiliar against the floor.

            The admission, however, did not have its intended effect.  The Enchantress drew herself up.  “Very well, then you may share in his suffering.  Why, if what you say is true, then you are as useless as houseware!”  The light brightened once more amid the gasping and choking of the servants, and the prince clenched his eyes, now watery with tears, against whatever fresh hell was taking place.

            As suddenly as it had appeared, the light was gone, along with the Enchantress.  The prince found he could fight off oblivion no longer, and sank into a troubled sleep within moments.


	2. Abandoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Adam wakes to a nightmare.

It was a slow process, Adam-François’s return to consciousness.  At the first, he could not distinguish between the chill of his fevered dreams and the coolness of the ground on which he lay, the darkness of the abyss of sleep and the darkness of his cavernous surroundings.  And when he finally did take stock that he was awake, he also noticed that something was—off.  He felt heavy, and not just with sleep.  Something moved against his face as he frowned.  And then he remembered.

            He would have sat bolt upright, but his body simply did not respond as he tried.  Finally, with a burst of frustration, he pushed himself up, and then the strange sensations that had been accosting him became too pronounced to ignore.  His head lolled forward of its own accord under an unfamiliar weight as he panted and struggled.  “Mrs. Potts!” he attempted to cry out, but the plea came out only as a yelp and a growl.  Adam-François’s throat closed up and he felt tears of frustration well in his eyes.  As they fell onto his cheeks, an uncomfortable tingling caused him to reach a hand to his face, and a number of alarming discoveries registered with him at once.

            Fur.  There was fur.  On his face.  This fact reached him through hands that felt oddly swollen and numb, stubby, with uncomfortably long nails.  There was a slight tenderness and pain in his lower back as he shifted, and he whipped around, his eyes already adjusting to the dark.  A strange protrusion lay curled around his misshapen feet, and as he realized what it was, he felt his heart stutter in his chest.

            A beast, that was what she had said.  She had turned him into a beast.  Adam-François began to hyperventilate as the full implication of this set in.  He stumbled to his feet, took a hesitant step and abruptly sprawled.  His knees hit the ground, but they no longer seemed to support his weight, the angle was all off.  His face connected with the floor with a loud clatter.  Adam-François pushed himself to his feet again, perching on his toes.  _Like a beast_ , he thought wildly.  That— _tail_ , that hated tail twitched back and forth as if of its own accord, steadying him.  Hobbling out of the ballroom, he cried out name after name, his raspy voice reverberating off of the still walls.

            He made the familiar way to the servants’ quarters—it had been many years since he had snuck down every week to visit his nursemaid after she had been moved to the kitchens, but he could still walk it blindfolded.  He remembered it well: how he would whisk in between the legs and skirts of servants, how Mrs. Potts would greet him with a madeleine, adjust his peruke, and envelope him in the warmest embrace.  How those visits had abruptly ended when it had fallen to his father to mind his upbringing.  What he would give to have Mrs. Potts’s comforting arms around him now.

            The servants’ quarters, the kitchens, the washroom—all empty.  Oh God, no, oh, no, they had all abandoned him—although, Adam-François growled in disgust, who could blame them?  Even if they were not horrified enough by this monstrous form to break the strong ties of household loyalty, the fear of whatever dark magic now tainted this place would surely be enough to drive them away.  Even Mrs. Potts, who had a child to protect.  But Lumière?  The man who turned every situation into a joke, the man who had told him such fanciful tales as a child?  Surely not…?

            He was alone.  Oh, God, he was utterly alone.

            Moments turned into minutes.  Adam-François stared blankly into the kitchens.  He had no idea how to proceed.

            “Master,” came a rusty, harsh voice from behind him, and Adam-François whipped around to take in one of the most terrifying sights he had ever beheld.

            There, on the rustic wooden table in the center of the room, was a candelabra.  Or a miniature statue.  Adam-François really couldn’t tell.  Whatever it was, though, it was talking.

            He leaped back, tripping on the blasted tail and falling onto what could only be described as haunches.  “You—wh—“

            “Lumière.  It’s Lumière.  Yes, I know,” the candelabra said bitterly.  “I awoke yesterday.  You can imagine the shock,” he noted drily, with not a hint of his usual levity.

            _Yesterday?  How long had it been?_   Adam-François pushed this from his mind—there were more important questions to ask.  “ _What happened?_ ”

            The candelabra shifted and Adam-François recognized that it—he—was shaking his head.  “A curse has been laid upon us, Master.”

            “Y-you as well?”

            “All of us.  The staff.  Oh, and the Italian performers, too.  Most have not awoken yet.”

            _The entire staff?_   “ _Why?_ ”

            The candelabra gazed at Adam-François with his eerily blank eyes.  “Your behavior was animalistic; she turned you into a beast.  Our behavior was indifferent; she turned us into…rubbish.”

            Adam-François stared at the candelabra—his maître d’—in shock.  He felt an unfamiliar and terrible sensation, one he belatedly recognized as guilt, grip his heart.  “L-Lumière—“

            “Don’t,” Lumière said in a tone he would never have dared to use before with the prince.  “Just—break the curse, Adam.  Break the goddam curse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, thanks for the kudos and feedback! So I'm planning on slowly bringing Adam from thinking of himself as the prince all the way down to thinking of himself as a beast, so in the way I refer to him in each chapter until may be slightly different. Does that seem like an appropriate writing decision? Also, having trouble finding that fic I mentioned in my notes last time, if anyone knows the name of it please comment! Again, I welcome all feedback!


	3. Wax Wings

The days that followed that fateful night were nothing short of horrifying.  It was as if the freakish nightmares of his darkest slumbers had entered into his waking moments.  Adam could barely breathe with the horror of it.  He couldn’t look at what was now his household staff from shame and so he hid himself from their gaze, retreating to the West Wing for how long he knew not.  No one came to find him.  They certainly had enough to worry about.

            The first night he flew into a fit of violence brought on by blackest despair.  After speaking with Lumière, he stumbled up to the West Wing, barely heeding the fact that he was completely disrobed with the exception of the thick fur coat that now adorned him.  Shuffling into his room, he caught sight of a creature most hideous and terrifying in the mirror, and without thinking he reared back.  It took several moments for him to absorb the fact that the monster in the mirror was indeed him, and for the first time he was forced to fully face the truth of what he was.

            Thick, coarse fur covered every inch of a body that was now far more large and lumbering than Adam had ever remembered it to be.  The legs were twisted in a strange way.  It eventually dawned on Adam that they were the legs of a predatory beast, a wolf or large cat, with the knees drawn and bent and feet long and lifted onto toes with lethal-looking claws.  The arms weren’t arms anymore, either—bending at the elbows of their own accord, they ended with clawed, stubby fingers.  Adam twitched a finger experimentally, with an irrational hope that the mirror monster would not do the same.  His hope was dashed almost immediately as the beast’s claws twitched in response, and Adam noted dazedly that his fingers, or whatever they were now, moved stiffly.  He attempted to curl them into a fist.  They moved more readily than a dog’s, but they were much clumsier than that of a man.  Adam moved his head heavily to the side.  The creature moved its massive horned head as well, and Adam’s hand automatically flew up to feel one of the smooth, twisted objects, to explore the base where it burrowed into his hair and met with his skull.  The rough skin there was irritated from the sudden growth, and Adam bit his lip against the unpleasant sensation.  He immediately tasted blood and ran his tongue over long, uneven fangs.

            A tail flicked back and forth in the mirror, and, in a sudden rage, Adam swiped the tail from behind him and yanked with all his might.  The pain built up in the base of the tail and he howled in despair and fury.  Wrong, it was all wrong.  This couldn’t be happening.  He could not be this creature, this could not be his body!  That was not his tail, those were not his horns!  Oh, God, this wasn’t real.  Enchantresses, fairy folk, monsters, curses, there were the stuff of the fairy tales and legends his Maman and Lumière would tell to him in his younger years.  This, this was impossible.

            At that thought, he gazed over at the portrait hanging on one of the oak wood walls of his chamber, the royal familial portrait of his father, himself, and his dear Maman.  He had often wondered why he kept it there—certainly not to honor his father.

            But his Maman—there were no portraits to honor her, none that were unmarred by the hawk-like visage of his father, and so the portrait had come to hang on his wall.  Adam suddenly realized with a pang of shame all of the sordid scenes to which this portrait had been privy; all of the drunkenness, the debauchery, the various noblewomen and occasionally noblemen who had adorned his bed, and now… _this_.  A growl, so strange and new in his throat, leaped past his crooked teeth as he locked eyes with his father’s likeness.  He saw himself in the cold grey eyes of the man who had ruled his province, his household and his son with an iron fist, the man who had punished weakness and praised cruelty, and he realized he had no desire to see himself in his father’s face ever again.  He turned back to the mirror.  Of all of the traits he could have kept in this monstrous form, it had to be his father’s eyes.  Lumbering over to the portrait, he traced a clawed finger along his father’s brow before abruptly slashing downwards.

            There might be benefits to having claws.

            Adam began raking his claws against the thin material, this work of art that had taken such time and money, this portrait that was a constant reminder of everything he hated about his father and everything he hated within himself.  He felt a vicious satisfaction as he worked at tearing away his own image, an image which he did not own anymore and that could lay in tatters with the rest of his life.

            God damn his father!  Damn him for taking him from his mother, damn him for mistreating them both all their lives!  Damn him for turning him…turning him into something of which his Maman would be utterly ashamed.

            He stopped just short of tearing into the only image he had left of his mother.  Balking in horror at what he had nearly done, he gazed remorsefully into his mother’s deep brown eyes.

            “I’ve made a real hash of everything, haven’t I Maman?” he whispered to her memory.

            The layers of oil on the tattered canvas did not reply, as Adam knew they wouldn’t.  He sank to the ground, tears running down his face and dampening his fur.

            Would she love him, even as this—this beast?  Shakespeare had commented that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.  But Adam hadn’t been a rose—far from it.  And suddenly, horribly, Adam wasn’t sure whether his mother would have loved him as the man he had been a few nights ago, much less the monster he was now.

            It was then that a bright shimmer, warped through the water of his tears, caught Adam’s eye.  He turned his weighty head to find something glowing on the stone plinth in the center of his private balcony.  Curious and slightly afraid, he crept toward the source of the light on awkward paws.  He sucked in a harsh breath as he realized what it was.

            It was a rose.  It was _the_ rose, the rose that had damned him, the rose that held his life and very soul within its petals.  Oh…oh, if only he had known.  He glanced back at the bed to which only a few nights ago he had planned to guide the baroness’s young sister and his mind reeled with the knowledge of how drastically his life had changed within the past few nights.

            “Icarus, you flew too close to the Sun,” he muttered, returning his gaze to the rose.

            Even as he watched, the first petal dulled and withered before his eyes.  As if in response to this event, a rumble shook through the castle.  And he could feel something else—he groaned as his body fell slightly forward as if to pressure him further still to fall on all fours.  Immediately a myriad of odors assaulted him: the sickly sweet scent of the rose, the bitter winter air, the musk of his own fur.  It occurred to him that his sense of smell must have sharpened.  _Beastly, I’m becoming more beastly_ , he thought, his throat tightening in fear.  Mon dieu, it was real.

            This was it.  This was his life now.

            What was he to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this one! Most of my fics in this series will be one-shots, and those that aren't will be only a few chapters. Do you think this is a good format for it? I hope you like the series so far, it will probably just get more angsty from here on out!

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, the idea of the household servants sticking up for Adam and this causing their downfall came from another fic. When I post next I will give you the name of the fic and author, I can't remember it off of the top of my head.


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